The Dallas City Council voted to approve an amendment to continue the contract between the Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) and the City through May 1, 2025.
Passed as a part of the consent agenda during the council meeting on April 26, the contract extension represents the fifth time the City has agreed to continue its connection with the institution.
The two-year extension contract will “allow the City and the DMA to continue negotiations for a longer-term contract with revised terms and conditions.”
“From its founding as the Dallas Art Association in 1903 to its current location in the Dallas Arts District as the Dallas Museum of Art, the Museum has a long and ingenious history,” the institution says on its website. “The Dallas Museum of Art is a space of wonder and discovery where art comes alive.”
As part of its mission statement, the DMA aims to “pursue excellence in collecting and programming, present works of art across cultures and time, and be a driving force in contemporary art.”
The new City Council resolution further explained that the original iteration of the contract between the City and the DMA occurred in 1921. Throughout the first three-quarters of the twentieth century, the art museum was housed within a few different buildings in Fair Park after moving to the site in 1909.
By the centennial celebration of Texas’ independence, the art collection moved into a newly constructed building in Fair Park. The DMA noted that “the centennial Exposition Art Exhibition drew over 154,000 visitors to the Museum from June 6 to November 26, 1936.”
The new building was constructed through bonds sold by the City for that purpose, equaling about $500,000. The art museum remained in Fair Park until 1984, when it moved to downtown Dallas.
When the museum moved to the new location at 1717 N. Harwood St., where it remains to this day, “the parties agreed that the City held and would continue to hold title to the Art Museum land and buildings.”
The City also helped fund the move, and another city bond package was passed in 1979, which allocated $24.7 million to support the new facility.
The next contract iteration occurred in 1990 when “the City Council authorized the second amendment to the contract to provide for the development of an expansion to the Art Museum in the form of the Hamon Building, for which the DMA privately raised over $30.2 million.”
The third amendment in 2011 served “to extend the term of the contract and update liability and insurance requirements.” More recently, the fourth amendment was approved by the council in 2021.
Like the current amendment, the 2021 agreement was executed to “allow the City and the DMA to continue negotiations for a longer-term contract with revised terms and conditions.” This means that negotiations for a more stable contract will have gone on for four years by the time the fifth amendment expires in 2025.
Members of the City Council and DMA recently butted heads during the Quality of Life, Arts, and Culture Committee meeting on March 16 after members balked at the museum’s request for roughly $85 million in the upcoming bond package, as reported by The Dallas Express.
“Come back with a reasonable number that voters might actually be able to vote yes for,” Council Member Omar Narvaez (District 6) said. “$85 million is basically going to be impossible.”
The Dallas Express reached out to the Dallas Museum of Art for comment about the contract amendment but did not receive a response prior to publication.